1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector having a shielding plate reliably retained in an dielectric housing thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Board-to-Board connector assembly generally includes two matable connectors respectively mounted on two parallelly spaced printed circuit boards (PCB) to electrically connect these two PCBs for signal transmission therebetween. In some special applications, a large distance is required between the two spaced PCBs. A high profile board-to-board connector is accordingly developed to satisfy this requirement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,033,236 discloses a high profile board-to-board connector comprising a dielectric housing, a plurality of terminals retained in the dielectric housing for signal transmission and a pair of shielding plates attached to the dielectric housing. The dielectric housing comprises a plurality of pairs of protrusions and a plurality of cutouts. Each shielding plate is formed with a plurality of retaining tabs and a plurality of grounding tabs facing the cutouts at an upper edge thereof. Each terminal comprises a horizontally extending tail portion located below and near a lower edge of the shielding plate. The retaining tabs movably engage with the pairs of protrusions for facilitating assembly of the shielding plate. When the connector mates with a complementary connector, some predetermined contacts of a complementary connector are received in the cutouts and mechanically contact with the grounding tabs. At the same time, the predetermined contacts of the complementary connector exert a force on the grounding tabs. Repeated mating between the connector and the complementary connector may drive the shielding plate to move downwardly and result in electrical connection between the shielding plate and the tail portions of the terminals, whereby the signal transmission cannot be ensured.
Hence, a high profile board-to-board connector with a shielding plate reliably retained thereto is desired to overcome the disadvantage of the prior art.